Sharing energy resources will be achieved through the electric car: this is what Vehicle-to-Grid technology will deliver, allowing vehicles to be plugged into the electricity network and to redistribute the stored energy.
Thanks to "V2G"-integrated systems, the batteries in electric vehicles, when they’re parked, can store electricity during off-peak hours and redistribute it during peak hours.
As they are calculated in real time, energy supply and demand will thus be optimised. In addition, V2G technology would appear to be a satisfactory response to the structural irregularity involved in the production of alternative energies such as solar or wind.
Optimising energy resources
The University of Delaware (United States), a member of the Magic Consortium along with players from the various industries involved (communication, car, electric), showed the first prototypes of V2G-integrated electric cars during the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)' s annual conference in San Diego in February 2010.
Willett Kempton, from the University of Delaware, says "if we recharge vehicles at night, using wind, the operators can then use that energy when the drivers are not using their cars and have plugged them in ".
In fact, private car owners only drive their cars, on average, 4% of the time. An electricity buyback system would allow the operators to use non-consumed energy, without having an impact on the electric car owners’ use.
According to a Parliamentary report on this storage technology, the number of cars on the road in France could thus represent power that is equivalent to 100 times that of EDF’s electricity generation.
The only barrier to the installation of V2G technology: the cost to implement the "intelligent" networks which would thus plug cars into the electricity network from any parking place and which would allow it to collect the electricity.
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